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Foreign Affairs: Analysis

Recently the Earth Security Group launched its annual Earth Security Index 2015 report, which outlines the resource security risks that countries and multinational companies face from a deepening of economic and political inter-dependencies at regional and global levels. Meanwhile the RIAC team asked Alejandro Litovsky, CEO of the Earth Security group based in London, UK, to share his unique insights into the topic, the future scenarios for how global sustainability risks will shape regional stability and international relations in many emerging economies and what this means for governments and investors.

Nikolay KaveshnikovPolitical Science PhD, associate professor, head of department of European integration at MGIMO-University, leading research fellow at the RAS Institute of Europe

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The European Union summit held on March 19-20, 2015, solemnly declared “the need to build the Energy Union.” Has the dream expressed a few years ago by legendary former European Commission President Jacques Delors come true? Have the Europeans managed to shape a new strategy for dealing with large-scale modern challenges in the energy sector?

It’s OK to be jealous of Lee Kuan Yew. The late Prime Minister of Singapore was the hero of the ultimate country-sized success story. For any leader of the developing world, the title of his political testimony – From the Third World to the First – represents a headline for the biography of their dreams. Southeast Asian politicians will look up to Lee as one who was able to use a firm grip on power to make a powerhouse out of a sleepy city-state, making it a shining example of post-colonial development.

At Commission on Military-Technical Cooperation (MTC) session with Foreign States on January 27, 2014 Russian President Vladimir Putin encouraged those present to seek out new markets, in particular mentioning Latin America. Soon afterwards, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu paid a visit to Russia’s old friends in the region: Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. The three countries’ leaders are known to have difficult relations with the United States, and are under U.S. trade restrictions, pushing them toward Russia and China. China’s economic position in the region is much stronger than Russia’s, so could China overshadow Moscow’s plans?

Author: Andrei Baikov, Editor-in-Chief of the International Trends journal

Are We Paying too much Attention to the Assistant Secretary of State?

For several days now, the Russian media has been abuzz over what one journalist dubbed the “explosive” tour of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia taken by Victoria Nuland, whom it has referred to as assistant to the U.S. Secretary of State, but who is actually the assistant to the Under Secretary of State.

Nikolay SoukhovPhD in History, Researcher at the RAS Institute of Oriental Studies

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The terrorist attack in Tunisia on March 18, 2015 which took the lives of 22 civilians was no accident. At the very hour of the attack, the Tunisian Justice Minister was presenting a new draft law on combating terrorism and money laundering in Parliament. The presentation ended with sounds of gunfire coming from a nearby building.

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Strategic relations between Russia and Armenia have been progressing along all tracks, within both bilateral and international organization frameworks, with considerably more attention being given to dialogue in the context of Eurasian integration. We met with President of the Russian-Armenian Commonwealth Yuri Navoyan to discuss the key areas of cooperation between the two historic partners, as well as existing and potential hurdles to progress in this area.

Related materials:

With a little delay (which we can blame on winter holidays break) RIAC is back with the monthly international publications digest. Here you will find fifteen trends for 2015 from Spanish CIDOB, a number publications on the future of the European project, some reports on the negative effects of the ongoing economic recession due to the declining oil prices and crumbling Russian gas strategy in the light of the Ukrainian crisis. A note on the coming American chairmanship in the Arctic council and never-ending conflict in Sudan make a close-up to this digest.

This report offers three different perspectives from
various experts in the United States (Atlantic Council), Russia (Russian International Affairs Council), and Europe (European Leadership Network)
on the state of the European security environment in the
aftermath of the Ukraine crisis. These three perspectives
reveal different perceptions of the current situation,
provide different analyses of where common interests
lie, and offer suggestions on how to make best use
of the tools and institutional mechanisms to advance
these interests